January 8, 2021
NASA Mars Panel Hosted By Purdue Mars
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NASA Mars Panel Hosted By Purdue Mars
Coming this January, you are invited to join the Purdue Mars Activities and Research Society for a presentation about NASA’s current and future plans regarding Mars exploration from NASA engineers themselves! Further details about the presented subject is provided below.
Drawing on decades of human space exploration and Mars architecture planning, the Red Planet is finally within reach. Harnessing every opportunity to demonstrate capabilities on the International Space Station and implement Mars-forward operations and technologies in the Artemis program, NASA is exercising every prospect to prepare for the first human missions to Mars. This session will dive into the leading Mars spaceflight architecture, its precursor activities on the International Space Station and at the Moon, and the greatest challenges—and their probable solutions—of keeping astronauts happy, healthy and productive throughout the journey.
The event will be held virtually on January 25th from 1-2 PM (ET) on Microsoft Teams and feature appearances of NASA engineers Raymond Gabe Merrill, Michelle Rucker and Jeremey Trujillo. We will conclude with ten minutes for any questions you might have. Descriptions for each presenter can be found below as shown on the event flyer attached to this email.
For more information on Purdue Mars please visit https://purdue.marssociety.org/ and for any questions regarding this event feel free to email me personally (ssasin@purdue.edu).
Link to event: Click here to join the meeting
Hope to see you all there!
Simon Sasin
Purdue School of Aeronautics & Astronautics
Purdue Mars – Event Planning Chair
NASA PRESENTER DESCRIPTIONS:
Raymond Merrill (NASA Langley Research Center):
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Michelle Rucker (NASA Johnson Space Center):
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Michelle Rucker is a native of Anchorage, Alaska and a 34-year veteran of NASA. She began her career in the Houston oil industry, designing down-hole sensors while pursuing undergraduate and graduate degrees in Mechanical Engineering from Rice University. She began her NASA career as a test engineer at the White Sands Test Facility in New Mexico, supervising materials testing and managing a two-stage light gas gun hypervelocity impact research laboratory. Michelle has had the good fortune to participate in a range of exciting projects, such as International Space Station (ISS) environmental control and life support systems development, supervising spacesuit and Extravehicular Activity (EVA) tools projects, ISS exercise equipment system engineering, and Orion and Altair lunar lander test and verification. She currently leads the Mars Architecture Team, developing crewed Mars mission concepts.
Jeremy Trujillo:
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Jeremy Trujillo is a current senior at Vanderbilt University pursuing undergraduate degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Spanish. A native of Montrose, Colorado, he began his career as a machinist and welder for a custom metal fabrication business. Following his work in fabrication, he gained experience in project management by streamlining manufacturing workflows for a shipping container modifications company specializing in modular laboratories, blast resistant modules, and energy storage solutions. Through an internship with NASA Johnson Space Center, he supported the Mars Architecture Team on a variety of projects, including part and process design for in-space manufacturing of metals, crewed Mars mission concepts development, and graphical representation of systems engineering solutions. Jeremy hopes to return to NASA or pursue work in the commercial space industry upon his graduation from Vanderbilt.